14 But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality:



Ver. 14. Your abundance] That your cup may overflow into their lesser dishes, that your superfluities both in respect of the necessity of nature and exigency of estate (as the schoolmen speak) may supply the wants of God’s poor afflicted.



A supply for your want] Those that lend mercy may have need to borrow. The Shunammite that refused once to be spoken for to the king by the prophet, little thought she should afterwards have craved that courtesy of his man Gehazi. Those that stand fastest upon earth have but slippery footing. No man can say that he shall not need friends. Pythias was so wealthy a man, that he was able to entertain Xerxes’ whole army, consisting of a million of men; yet afterwards he became so poor that he lacked bread.